The proprietor came out from behind the counter. “For your baby?” he shouted.
“Yes, sir,” said the Filipino.
The proprietor pushed him violently outside. “If you say that again in my place, I’ll bash in your head!” he shouted aloud so that he would attract attention. “You goddamn brown monkeys have your nerve, marrying our women. Now get out of this town!”
“I love my wife and my child,” said the Filipino desperately.
“Goddamn you!” The white man struck the Filipino viciously between the eyes with his fist.
Years of degradation came into the Filipino’s face. All the fears of his life were here—in the white hand against his face. Was there no place where he could escape? Crouching like a leopard, he hurled his whole weight upon the white man, knocking him down instantly. He seized a stone the size of his fist and began smashing it into the man’s face. Then the white men in the restaurant seized the small Filipino, beating him unconscious with pieces of wood and with their fists.
He lay inert on the road. When two deputy sheriffs came to take him away, he looked tearfully back at his wife and child.
* * *
—
I was about to go to bed when I heard unfamiliar noises outside. Quickly I reached for José’s hand and whispered to him to dress. José followed me through the back door and down a narrow irrigation ditch. We crept on our bellies until we reached a wide field of tall peas, then we began running away from the town. We had not gone far when we saw our bunkhouse burning.
We walked all the cold, dark night toward Calexico. The next morning we met a Filipino driving a jalopy.
“Hop in, Pinoys!” he said. “I’m going to Bakersfield. I’m on my way to the vineyards.”
I ran for the car, my heart singing with relief. In the car, José went to sleep at once.
“My name is Frank,” said the driver. “It is getting hot in Imperial Valley, so I’m running away. I hope to find work in the grape fields.”
It was the end of spring. Soon the grapevines would be loaded with fruit. The jalopy squeaked and groaned, and once when we were entering Los Angeles, it stalled for hours. Frank tinkered and cooed over it, as though the machine were a baby.
I wanted to find my brother Macario, but my companions were in a hurry. In Riverside the jalopy stalled again. José ran to the nearest orange grove. In San Bernardino, where we had stopped to eat pears, José took the wheel and drove all through the night to Bakersfield.
We found a place on a large farm owned by a man named Arakelian. Hundreds of Filipinos were arriving from Salinas and Santa Maria, so we improvised makeshift beds under the trees. Japanese workers were also arriving from San Francisco, but they were housed in another section of the farm. I did not discover until some years afterward that this tactic was the only way in which the farmers could forestall any possible alliance between the Filipinos and the Japanese.
Some weeks after our work had begun rumors of trouble reached our camp. Then, on the other side of town, a Filipino labor camp was burned. My fellow workers could not explain it to me. I understood it to be a racial issue, because everywhere I went I saw white men attacking Filipinos. It was but natural for me to hate and fear the white man.
I was nailing some boards on a broken crate when Frank came running into the vineyard.
“Our camp is attacked by white men!” he said. “Let’s run for our lives!”
“I’m going back to Los Angeles,” José said.
“Let’s go to Fresno,” I insisted.
We jumped into Frank’s jalopy and started down the dirt road toward the highway. In Fresno the old car skidded into a ditch, and when we had lifted it back to the highway, it would not run any more. Frank went to a garage and sold it. I told my companions that we could take the freight train to Stockton. I knew that the figs were about ready to be picked in Lodi.
* * *
—
We ran to the freight yards, only to discover that all the boxcars were loaded. I climbed to the top of a car that was full of crates and my companions followed me. The train was already moving when I saw four detectives with blackjacks climbing up the cars. I shouted to my companions to hide. I ran to the trap door of an icebox, watching where the detectives were going.
José was running when they spotted him. He jumped to the other car and hid behind a trap door, but two more detectives came from the other end and grabbed him. José struggled violently and freed himself, rolling on his stomach away from his captors. On his feet again, he tried to jump to the car ahead, but his feet slipped and he fell, shouting to us for help. I saw his hands clawing frantically in the air before he disappeared.
I jumped out first. Frank followed me, falling upon the cinders almost simultaneously. Then we were running to José. I thought at first he was dead. One foot was cut off cleanly, but half of the other was still hanging. Frank lifted José and told him to tie my handkerchief around his foot. We carried him to the ditch.
“Hold his leg,” Frank said, opening a knife.
“Right.” I gripped the bleeding leg with all my might, but when Frank put the sharp blade on it, I turned my face away.
José jerked and moaned, then passed out. Frank chewed some tobacco and spread it on the stump to keep the blood from flowing. Then we ran to the highway and tried to hail a car, but the motorists looked at us with scorn and spat into the wind. Then an old man came along in a Ford truck and drove us to the county hospital, where a kind doctor and two nurses assured us that they would do their best for him.
Walking down the marble stairway of the hospital, I began to wonder at the paradox of America. José’s tragedy was brought about by railroad detectives, yet he had done no harm of any consequence to the company. On the highway, again, motorists had refused to take a dying man. And yet in this hospital, among white people—Americans like those who had denied us—we had found refuge and tolerance. Why was America so kind and yet so cruel? Was there no way to simplifying things in this continent so that suffering would be minimized? Was there no common denominator on which we could all meet? I was angry and confused, and wondered if I would ever understand this paradox.
We went to the hospital the following morning. José was pale but gay.
“I guess this is the end of my journey with you fellows,” he said.
“For a while,” Frank said. “You will be well again. We will meet you again somewhere. You will see!”
“I sent a telegram to your brother,” I said. “He will be here tomorrow.”
“We’ve got to go now,” Frank said.
“We have a long way to go,” I said.
“You are right,” José said.
“Good-bye till we meet again,” Frank said, taking José’s hand affectionately.
I looked back sadly. It was another farewell. How many others had I met in my journey? Where were they now? It was like going to war with other soldiers; some survived death but could not survive life. Could I forget all the horror and pain? Could I survive life?
I walked silently beside Frank to the highway. I was tired and exhausted and hungry. Frank and I had given all our money to José. We walked several miles out of town and took the first freight train going north. I did not care where we were going so long as it was away from Bakersfield. I shrank from tragedy, and I was afraid of death. My fear of death made me love life dearly.
We jumped off in Fresno where Filipinos told us that trouble was brewing. Frank wanted to proceed to Alaska for the fishing season, but I told him that conditions there were intolerable. The east was still an unexplored world, so we agreed to take a freight train to Chicago.
When we arrived in Idaho, I changed my plans. The pea fields decided me. Why go to an unknown city where there was no work? Here in this little town of Moscow were peas waiting and ready to be picked. So Frank and I worked for three weeks picking peas
. But his heart was already in Chicago. He could not work any more.
I took him to the bus station and gave him a little of my money. I hate slow partings. I patted him on the back and left. I met some Mexican families on their way to the beet fields in Wyoming. I rode on a truck with them as far as Cheyenne, where they stopped off to work for a month.
I went to town and walked around the premises of the Plains Hotel, hoping to see some workers there who might have come from Binalonan. I tried to locate them by peering through the windows, but gave up when some women looked at me suspiciously. I was too dirty to go inside. And I was afraid. My fear was the product of my early poverty, but it was also the nebulous force that drove me fanatically toward my goal.
I caught a freight train that landed me in Billings, Montana. The beet season was in full swing. Mexicans from Texas and New Mexico were everywhere; their jalopies and makeshift tents dotted the highways. There were also Filipinos from California and Washington. Some of them had just come back from the fish canneries in Alaska.
I went to Helena and found a camp of Filipino migratory workers. I decided to live and work with them, hoping to put my life in order. I had been fleeing from state to state, but now I hoped to gather the threads of my life together. Was there no end to this flight? I sharpened my cutting knife and joined my crew. I did not know that I was becoming a part of another tragedy.
* * *
—
The leader of our crew was a small Filipino called Pete. He walked lightly like a ball. When he was thinking, which he seldom did, he moved his head from side to side like a cat. He had a common-law wife, a young Mexican girl who was always flirting with the other men. I do not know what tribe he came from in the Philippines because he spoke several dialects fluently.
Every Saturday night the men rushed to town and came home at dawn, filling the house with the smell of whisky and strong soap. Once I went with them and found out that they played pool in a Mexican place and bought cheap whisky in a whorehouse where they went when the poolroom closed at midnight.
I was distracted by Myra, Pete’s wife. She was careless with herself, in a house where she was the only girl. I noticed that she was always going to town with Poco, a tubercular Filipino who loved nice clothes and dancing. One afternoon when it was my turn to cook, I saw Myra come to the kitchen with her suitcase.
“I’m going now,” she said to Pete, looking at the other men who were eating at the table.
Pete was at the far end of the table, his bare feet curling around the legs of the chair. He stopped the hand with the ball of rice in mid-air and leaped to the floor. Then he placed the rice carefully on the edge of his plate.
“Are you going with Poco?” Pete asked.
“Yes,” Myra said.
“You can’t go with him,” he said.
“You are not married to me,” she said, picking up her suitcase.
Pete grabbed her with one hand and struck her with the other. Then he dragged her to the parlor like a sack of beets, beating her with his fists when she screamed for Poco. Myra’s lover was waiting in a car in the yard. Pete pulled off Myra’s shoes and started beating the soles of her feet with a baseball bat, shouting curses at her and calling her obscene names.
I could not stand it any longer. I stopped washing the dishes, grabbed a butcher knife and ran into the parlor where they were. But Alfred, Poco’s cousin, leaped from the table and grabbed me. I struggled violently with him, but he was much stronger than I. He struck me at the base of my skull and the knife went flying across the room. It struck a pot in the sink.
When I regained consciousness, I heard Myra moaning. Pete was still beating her.
“So you want to run away!” he kept saying. “I will show you who is going to run away!”
I got up on my knees and crawled to a bench. Pete threw Myra on the floor and went back to his plate. Alfred grabbed Pete’s neck and hit him on the bridge of his nose with brass knuckles. Pete fell on the floor like a log and did not get up for minutes. When he regained consciousness, Alfred was sitting in the car with Poco. Pete resumed eating silently, but the blood kept coming out of his nose. He stopped eating and bathed his nose in the sink. Then he went to the parlor and began washing and bandaging Myra’s feet.
I gathered the plates and continued washing. I heard Myra laughing and giggling softly. She was in bed with Pete.
“I won’t do it again, honey,” she kept saying.
“Will you be good now?” Pete asked her.
“I love you, darling,” she said, laughing. “I love you! I love you!”
I cursed her under my breath. What kind of a girl was she? I cursed him, too. Pete bounced suddenly into the kitchen, rolling from side to side. I did not look at him. He was preparing something for Myra to eat. Then he carried the plates to her bed, walking lightly like a cat. I looked up from the sink. He was feeding her with a spoon, holding her head with one hand. Myra reached for Pete’s neck and kissed him.
Suddenly Poco came into the house and started shooting at them. I ran out of the house terrified, shouting to Alfred. But he opened the door and told me to jump into the car. Poco showed his face at the door.
“Run away, Alfred!” he shouted to his cousin. “Run away and don’t come back! I will kill them! Go now!”
Alfred hesitated for a moment; carefully he put the key in the lock and shifted the gear. Then we were driving furiously down the dirt road.
“The damn fool,” Alfred wept. “That damn fool is going to be hanged—and all for a prostitute!”
I grabbed the front seat for fear I would fall out when we turned a corner. I could tell by the stars in the wheeling sky that we were driving west. I was going back to the beginning of my life in America. I was going back to start all over again.
CHAPTER XX
It was not easy to understand why the Filipinos were brutal yet tender, nor was it easy to believe that they had been made this way by the reality of America. I still lacked the knowledge to synthesize the heart-breaking tragedies I had seen, and to project myself into their core so that I would be able to interpret them objectively. There were times when I found myself inextricably involved, not because I was drawn to this life by its swiftness and violence, but because I was a part and a product of the world in which it was born. I was swept by its tragic whirlpool, violently and inevitably; and it was only when I had become immune to violence and pain that I was able to project myself out of it. It was only then that I was able to integrate my experiences so that I could really find out what had happened to me in those tragic years.
While I was fleeing from the barbarity of the two Filipinos in Montana, I was also trying to escape from the barbarian that was myself. It took me a little lifetime to fight against the death of myself, to fight the slow decay that devoured me like a cancer.
* * *
—
I tried to get a freight train in Spokane for Seattle, but the railroad men drove me away. I took a bus and sat in the back seat, hiding myself from the white passengers. And once again, in the night, I saw Bremerton shining by the lake. When had it been that this bright city had softened the sadness in my heart? It seemed so long ago! A few more hours of slow driving, and I was at the station. I left the bus and walked around the block, watching for Oriental signs on the buildings and stores. I found the hotel where I had stayed when I had arrived in Seattle from the Philippines, but it was now under new management. I took a room for twenty-five cents and sneaked away with the sheets the next morning. I sold them in a Negro store down the block.
That was my first deliberately dishonest act. How did I feel? Did my conscience bother me? I was surprised to discover that I looked upon it merely as a part of my daily life. I did not feel guilty. I even thought of doing it again. With the money, I went to a Japanese restaurant where I ate broiled fish and fishbone soup for ten cents. Then I walked lazily in the sun, s
tanding on street corners for hours, waiting for nothing.
Not far from King Street laundry workers were on strike; there was a picket line around the building. I stood on the bridge watching them, then climbed down the embankment to a shack where a man was running a mimeograph machine. He stopped when he saw me; then seizing a placard from a table, he placed it in my hands and dropped twenty-five cents in my pocket. I could not understand it. I was being paid to walk around a building with a sign. I went again the following morning, but the strike was called off and the workers went back to their machines.
I mingled with the cannery workers who were still in Seattle. They gambled away their earnings in the Chinese gambling houses and stayed on in the city, waiting for the apple season in Yakima Valley. I was fortunate to find a man with a car. He took me as far as Portland, where he found a job washing dishes at the bus station. I walked idly about the business district, then to the residential section, finally along the river where I stopped, remembering the young American girl who had walked with me in the night, years before.
It was still summer. There was a freshness in the air, something new and vibrant. I walked under the trees for hours. Then I went to the bus station and slept on a bench, sitting up when a policeman came to drive me away. I was terrified of being sent to jail. Toward dawn a Filipino, who was a busboy at the station cafeteria, told me that I could go to a certain address for something to eat and a place to sleep.
“Is it free?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I hope there is still room for you. If not, there is always something to eat.”
“I am hungry,” I said. “I don’t care about the room. I can walk in the streets. Food is what I need.”
“Here is the address,” he said, giving me a piece of paper.
I thanked him and left, my stomach aching for food. I found the place near Chinatown. I went up the stairs and gave the piece of paper to the man in the little office. He registered my name in a big ledger and gave me a ticket.
America Is in the Heart Page 18
